Haunted Places in Arkansas

With Halloween only a few days away, it’s only natural for your imagination to run wild about the supernatural, there are many allegedly haunted places in Arkansas where legends and eyewitnesses claim the dead still roam. It’s easy to brush off these claims… until you experience it for yourself. Below, we’ve shared several stories about haunted places in Arkansas that are sure to put a shiver down your spine. Are you brave enough to venture out to see them yourself, or do you need a Ram 1500 to get you there safely? Read on, then come and see us at Landers Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram to find your perfect vehicle for ghost busting!

The Allen House | Monticello, AR 

Monticello’s spectacular Allen House was built in 1906 by wealthy local businessman Joe Lee Allen. The massive Queen-Anne-Style mansion would be home to much tragedy over the years, including the deaths of several of Allen’s children. In 1948, Allen’s daughter LaDell poisoned herself with mercury cyanide inside the house and reportedly haunts the home to this day. Later tenants and owners of the home have reported strange and unexplainable things occurring in the home including a vision of a woman in the upstairs window, dark shadows dancing around the house, and even doppelgängers that seem to appear as occupants of the home before disappearing. To learn more about the mansion, visit their website here.

St. Francis County Museum | Forrest City, AR 

It may seem unimaginably primitive, but it wasn’t that long ago that the best medical help many rural Arkansans could receive was from a small-town doctor using dated methods and medications. Doctor J.O. Rush moved to Forrest City, AR, in 1900 and built his home and medical practice in 1907 at 603 Front Street in Forrest City, now the home of St. Francis County Museum. When the museum opened in 1996, visitors and employees began noticing strange and frightening things in the house like shadowy figures, books toppling from shelves as if pulled down by a ghost, and peculiar sounds. Learn more on the museum’s website. 

King Opera House | Van Buren, AR

Situated on the edge of the frontier, Van Buren was formerly a way-station between the security of Arkansas and the lawless and wild lands beyond, and it bore witness to plenty of violence in bloodshed in days of old. Some believe that this darkness stuck around and inhabited the King Opera house. Built in 1880, Van Buren’s King Opera House once served as the area’s main entertainment center, and like a lot of old theatres, it has a long-standing reputation for being haunted. Eyewitnesses have reported seeing lights switched off my unseen specters, ghostly apparitions sitting in the audience during rehearsals, and even a spirit of a young man dressed in a black cape and Victorian top hat. Some say the ghost of the young man was a vaudevillian who fell in love with the daughter of a local doctor while performing at the King Opera House. As the legend goes, when the doctor discovered the performer planned to elope with his daughter, he killed him in a fit of rage, and his spirit returned to haunt the theatre where he met his true love.

Arkansas is full of peculiar spectacles to see this time of year, and we at Landers Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram are here to help you find the perfect vehicle for all of your haunting adventures. Happy Halloween!